“Christmas: Baby Please Come Home”

24Dec09

There’s a red envelope sitting near the paper shredder.  It arrived about a week ago, the shape betraying it as an obvious Christmas card, the writing on the front looking like my mother’s.  The envelope is still unopened.

This happened last year, too.  At that time, my partner got tired of looking at it sitting there, and said, “do you mind if I open that thing?  You never know, maybe she’s had a change of heart.  You never know what it will say until you open it.”

“I know what it will say,” I tell her.  “It will have a lengthy sentimental series of verses of love for one’s son printed on the card, and inside, there will be a two-page handwritten letter from mom about how she prays for me every day and asks God to take away this feeling that I’m a girl.  She’ll tell me all about how Jesus can supposedly fix it all in an instant when I ask, and then she’ll go on about how much I’ve hurt her and the family by my transition.  She’ll go into a few paragraphs about how my sister is doing and how my niece and nephew are growing up, just to remind me of what I’m missing, and then she’ll finish by talking about how every day she’s just holding on in hope of seeing the day that I’ll find Jesus, go back to being a boy and then she can die knowing that my soul will be saved.”

I felt like a heartless ogre saying it all just matter-of-factly like that, but I knew that the alternative to ignoring the card was something I couldn’t live with.  By the time I was three years into my transition, I was completely accepted in every other environment I found myself in, to the point where being trans was a non-issue.  But then I’d talk to my family and it was “[old boy name] this” and “[old boy name] that,” and every conversation was about how I was supposedly destroying my life and everyone else’s.  I’d complain that they needed to get used to my name – it had been my legal name for quite some time – and pronouns and my transition, and they’d say, “but [old boy name], you have to realize this is difficult for us” and then go on to fail to get it right even once.  My mother would talk about how dad breaks into tears when he thinks about me, how my sister is petrified of the thought of ever having to tell the kids, how her heart breaks every time she sees me or worries what the neighbours would think if I came to visit.  And detransitioning for family’s benefit was not something I could bear to do: after being able to finally be out and free, stepping back into that strangling, suffocating forgery of a life would not be something I could do without ultimately slitting my throat.  I had become the cause of apparently tremendous pain to my family, so I disowned myself from them.  That would be painful too, but somehow it seemed far more humane than remaining an ever-present source of anguish for them.  They weren’t going to change and I couldn’t reshape my life just for their benefit, so this was the one thing I could give them which would provide any sense of closure from which they could move on, and heal.

Last year, my partner had wandered away with the card.  A few minutes later, she came back, stood in the office doorway, and looked like she wanted to say something.

“What did it say?” I asked, knowing the answer.

She looked down, which was the only indication she could give that I have guessed exactly right, and turned and walked away.

My mother is dying.

Filed under: Mercedes, religion, transgender   |  1 Comment

College of Prayer Promotes Extermination of Gays: 1st Stop Uganda, 2nd Stop… Canada?

11Dec09

(And now back to yesterday’s planned post.  There are more important and relevant things in life than blogwars.)

In April, 2009, the Ugandan division of the Atlanta-based College of Prayer led by Julius Oyet began an number of evangelical prayer and teaching sessions with Members of Parliament in Uganda.  Ultimately, 8 MPs were selected for their servant leadership team, including David Bahati and Benson Obua-Ogwal, who in the months afterward drafted and sponsored the Anti Homosexuality Bill, which calls for mandatory life sentences or possibly executions for homosexuals.  CoP is not the only evangelical organization that inspired and pushed for the Bill — other influences include The Family, Rick Warren protege Martin Ssempa, and ex-gay leaders Don Schmierer and Scott Lively, the latter of whom revised the holocaust to place blame on gays.  However, CoP undoubtedly had an influence.

From the College of Prayer website:

When the team returned to North America, they received a phone call from David Chotka, COP Canada. David said, “I have three-twelve members of the Canadian Parliament who have heard about what God is doing in Uganda and would like to attend the Parliamentary COP in Uganda next year. They are interested in bringing the College of Prayer to the Canadian Parliament.”

Filed under: Canada, hate   |  2 Comments

Loss of longtime counselor & advocate to many LGBT2IQ Canadians

09Dec09

Tami Starlight requested that I forward the following, regarding the passing of someone who was very helpful and loved by the trans community in BC.  The Facebook event is for a memorial being held on Wednesday, December 9, 2009:

______________________

Catherine White was one of the 6 who perished off Saturna Island 9 days ago.

She was a counselor & advocate to many LGBT2IQ Canadians/Vancouverites over the 15 to 20 years. Unsure of the exact amount of years.

Greatly compassionate and down to earth woman.
Proud to call her a friend and a fellow counselor.
She counseled me when I was beginning my transition and gave 110%.
(this was back in 2001)

See:

http://sdholman.com/catherine/

Facebook event page.
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=189861654876

Great loss!
Sad indeed.
Also the others we lost on that flight. Quite something.

Namaste/All my relations
Tami Starlight
Coast Salish Territory/Vancouver, Canada.

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Rocky Horror and the Holy Grail, or: The Problem with Defining to Exclusion

14Nov09

As communities rise from the margins, they undergo a process of introspection, microscopic self-examination and self-definition.  It’s a process of healing, throwing off the ill-fitting definitions that had been imposed previously by a majority that didn’t experience and most often didn’t understand what it was building a box around.  It’s a process of finding pride in oneself and one’s identity.  It’s an important and necessary step in emerging and finding one’s strength and will.  It is this process that the trans community (or communities?) is evolving through.

But history shows that when left to happen without agreed-upon parameters, this newfound freedom to self-define has a tendency to exclude and marginalize others that share some fundamental common purposes.  I’ll try not to belabour the point as it’s been made many times before, but it seems to need regular repeating, so I’ll do so and move forward to (I think) a more substantial solution.

Filed under: Gender Politics, activism, feminism, hate, sex-positive, transgender   |  6 Comments

The Fundie’s Handbook

10Oct09

If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.  That’s the way I see it, and with the steamroller momentum of birtherism, teabagging, speechies, marriage protection and the like, one can’t help but just want to take the easier road of rolling with it.  Even my home Province of Alberta, Canada is swinging to the right like never before, cutting GRS funding, refusing to add protections for gender identity to human rights legislation, passing a provision to ensure that children can be evacuated before tolerance / evolution / Shakespeare / anti-bullying discussions can take place, and now handing a byelection over to a party that tells the Progressive Conservatives that they’re not nearly far right enough.  So I say, hey, roll with it, nobody likes the humiliation of losing.  For those who’d like to join me, here’s a few pointers.

Filed under: Canada, Gender Politics, activism, media, musings, politics, religion   |  1 Comment

Alberta Teacher Fired For Gender Change

02Oct09

In early October of 2008, substitute teacher Jan Buterman was informed that he was being dropped from the teacher list and should not report to a scheduled class that day. Jan had spoken with the Deputy Superintendent at the Greater St. Albert Catholic Regional Division No. 29 the previous June about his transition from female to male and that he would be returning to work after the summer break as Mr. Buterman — a minor change, since he had a mostly masculine gender presentation as it was. But in the start of October, the Archbishop of the Edmonton Diocese of the Catholic Church objected, and directed the school board to end his employment. The Archbishop felt that Jan “would create confusion and complexity with students and parents as a model and witness to Catholic faith values.” This from the organization that felt that the best way to deal with pedophile priests was to give them a free ride to a faraway diocese and a get out of jail free card… and have other pedophile priests cut a deal with the victims.

In Alberta, Canada, the Catholic School Board is publicly funded, and therefore subject to the same standards as any government entity. Nevertheless, the Archbishop and School Division felt so strongly about the need to fire him for transition — even though there is no quantitative reason to believe that students are in any way negatively affected by the presence of trans teachers — that they put it in writing.

Filed under: Alberta, Canada, Gender Politics, activism, religion, transgender   |  10 Comments

IAAF Official Wants to Sweep the Caster Semenyas Under the Rug

18Sep09

Sprinter Caster Semenya has been placed on suicide watch in the wake of leaked tests apparently showing evidence of intersexuality as well as the negative press she’s received. The news of this has prompted Lord Coe, a vice-president of the IAAF (which oversees the World Championships), to push for mandatory pre-emptive gender testing, to ensure that intersex athletes can be screened out before they arrive at the public stage.

Coe will be discussing this issue with the other IAAF vice-presidents on the federation’s advisory board and their recommendations will then be presented to the IAAF Council at its next meeting in November. There is a suggestion also that Coe may travel with Lamine Diack, the IAAF president, on his proposed forthcoming visit to South Africa to resolve the situation in which Semenya now finds herself.

Because it’s more humane to dash an athlete’s dreams out of sight than to possibly get egg on your face for doing it publicly.

Filed under: Gender Politics, media, medical   |  Leave a Comment

Tim Horton’s Sponsors Anti-SSM Event in the US

10Aug09

Update: That was quick.  Tim’s has withdrawn its sponsorship.

Original post:

Canadian donut franchise Tim Horton’s is sponsoring Marriage Day in Rhode Island.  This “Marriage Day,” as it turns out, is organized by the National Organization for Marriage, and in case there was any confusion, they loudly declare “This is a great opportunity to take a stand for marriage as God ordained it.”  As in, protecting heterosexuals from having to share the rights and privileges of marriage with same sex couples.

It’s very unlikely that there could have been any confusion about the event, as it’s being put on by an anti-gay organization and two churches involved in local lobbying against same-sex marriage, and features a worship music concert.

Change.org has already launched a petition on the matter.  At the very least, Tim Horton’s needs to clarify whether it actively opposes same-sex marriage.  Some Canadians might consequently want to reconsider spending their money there.

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Why “Sex Change” Surgery is Medically Necessary

08Aug09

Popular opinion has it that Gender Reassignment Surgery (GRS, often popularly nicknamed “sex change surgery”) is a cosmetic issue and motivated by a simple “want” to be female or male, by someone who was not born as such. However, extensive medical research into transsexuality dating as far back as the 1920s and continuing through modern studies have demonstrated otherwise, and consequently, medical standards of care have included GRS as a necessary procedure for decades. In order to understand this, people will honestly need to put aside preconceptions for a moment — and also realize at the same time that most transsexuals would rather see a health system in which preventative and quality-of-life treatments were uniformly covered, rather than one in which someone’s eye surgery or tendon issues are not, thus creating fighting amongst people in simultaneous need.

The experience of being transsexual involves one’s entire identity. They attempt to hide who they are, living a lie that feels unnatural in order to live up to others’ expectations, the hiding driven by a spiralling sense of shame and self-loathing, until it becomes an experience many liken to “suffocating,” or vents itself in an explosion of frustration. Transsexuals are unable to explain why they feel that their gender should be something different than their birth sex, and sometimes spend years attempting to mask themselves, to “pass” as the gender that society expects them to be. This restricts their ability to function socially, emotionally, psychically, spiritually, economically (it’s hard to be productive while constantly feeling out of one’s element and/or “backwards”), maybe sexually, and leaves them often suicidal as a result. If this continues into later adulthood, often a crisis point is reached in which the person suffers a complete emotional collapse.

“Gender Dysphoria” is the name for this condition, and treatment follows the standards of care established by the World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH, formerly HBIGDA), which includes GRS. No less than the American Medical Association has stepped forward advocating the necessity of surgery and its coverage. In fact, like the AMA, the American Psychiatric Association and their Canadian counterparts support GRS as a medically necessary part of treatment. It was partly for this reason that the Ontario Human Rights Commission ruled in 2008 that that Province should restore coverage of the procedure.

Treatment of Gender Dysphoria encorporates surgical and endocrine intervention, because analytical and aversion therapies have historically proven damaging. As much as mainstream society would like to believe that electroshock therapy, anti-psychotic drugs or conversion (“ex-gay”) therapy would help transsexuals “just get over it,” modern medicine has realized that this approach simply does not work, and usually results in suppression, suicide or extreme anti-social behaviour. Aligning body to mind, however, has enabled transsexuals to become valued and successful people in society. There are, in fact, a few transsexuals who feel that they can live without having GRS, but they are the exception and not the rule.

Gender Dysphoria (sometimes called “Gender Identity Disorder,” or GID) is currently listed as a mental health issue, but ongoing study of both genetic ”brain sex” and Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals (EDCs) show the possibility of some biological causal factor. In a study released in October 2003, UCLA researchers identified 54 genes in male and female mouse brains that led to measurable differences by gender, and went on to indicate the possibility of a brain being gendered differently to one’s physical sex. Studies of EDCs show another, possibly concurrent potential that exposure to chemicals that simulate hormone characteristics — particularly between the third and eighth week of pregnancy — can affect the signals sent out to determine psychological gender and biological sex, which appear to develop at different times during gestation. In all fairness, nothing is conclusively proven at this point, and there is not a lot of research money being put into further study, as most pharmaceutical companies do not yet see a payoff from doing so. But the anecdotal and observational data from EDC and brain studies of human and animal populations would tend to support an innate origin or component of transsexuality, and coincides with transsexuals’ convictions that they “just knew” that they were female (in the case of male-to-female transsexuals) or male (in the case of female-to-males).

There is more. Current legislation asserts that most forms of identification and legal documentation can only be changed to reflect one’s new gender after surgery has been verified. Without GRS, many pre-operative transsexuals experience severe limitations on employment, travel beyond Canada’s border, and treatment in medical, legal and social settings in which verifying ID is necessary. Prior to GRS surgery, transsexuals also face limitations on where they can go (i.e. the spa or gym, or anywhere that involves changing clothes) and difficulties in establishing relationships — as well as being in that “iffy” area where human rights are assumed to be protected, but have not yet been specifically established as such in policies and legislation. In hospitals, prisons and such, they are housed by physical sex rather than their gender identity, creating potentially risky situations, unless the authorities directly involved choose to keep them in isolation instead. And at the end of the day, without GRS surgery, one’s gender is always subject to being challenged or stubbornly unacknowledged by those who don’t realize that a transsexual’s gender identity was not a matter of choice. There is also an extremely high risk of violence faced upon the accidental discovery that one’s genitalia does not match their presentation.  No other supposedly “cosmetic” issue so completely affects a persons rights, citizenship and safety.

Transsexuality is not widely known or understood in mainstream society, and should not be confused with other aspects of the larger transgender (an umbrella term) culture. Although much sensationalism can be made of something like medical coverage of Gender Reassignment Surgery, the realities paint a very different story.

–
Take care,
Mercedes Allen
Alberta Transgender Resources: http://www.albertatrans.org/

Filed under: medical, transgender   |  Leave a Comment

Lu’s Womyn-Born-Womyn-Only Policy: The Ongoing Discussions

04Aug09

On July 6th, I noted the story of Lu’s: A Pharmacy for Women, operated by the Vancouver Women’s Health Collective (VWHC) , and noted how the Vancouver pharmacy’s policy to serve only “women who were born as women and live as women” excluded anyone transsexual or of transsexual history.  At that point, I’d recommended opening dialogue as a first step solution.  After some initial protests and media attention, that dialogue has begun, involving several advocates.  The outcome is still uncertain, but two things that are becoming apparent are that 1) both sides want to talk, and 2) no one wants to see a valuable resource for women close — they only wish to see only the reassessment of a bad policy.

Lu’s is currently screening people via a locked door, something that began after a public protest on the 11th.  A visual inspection and a short discussion must be passed before a person is allowed admittance to the pharmacy.  There is no signage about the womyn-born-womyn only policy — it is not needed in these circumstances.

Tuesday July 7th

On the day Lu’s opened, Shannon Blatt entered and expressed support for the concept of Lu’s and that she wished to move her prescriptions to the pharmacy.  A discussion of the women-born-women policy followed.

Filed under: Canada, Gender Politics, activism, feminism, transgender   |  1 Comment